Google downsizes, cuts Jaiku, Google Video, and more

Contrary to popular belief, the mighty force that is the Google empire is not exactly recession proof. The company announced yesterday that it was laying off roughly 100 employees and making some pretty significant “alterations” to its product offerings. None of the major Google services (Gmail, Google Docs, etc) were affected, but a number of minor Google products have been relegated to a virtual death row sentence. Jaiku is being shifted to the Google App Engine, which essentially means that the company will cease any and all official support, though Jaiku accounts will continue to function for the foreseeable future. Google Notebooks, Google Catalogs, Dodgeball, Google Video, and Google Mashup Editor, however, will all meet a similar fate, though Google Notebooks will simply be closed to any new user signups and Google video will still allows users to view existing content, though new content uploads will be disabled very shortly. All told, while it’s not a huge blow to the company’s bread-and-butter, it’s yet another example of just how bad the economic situation has become, and leads us to question whether a seemingly impenetrable company like Google will be able to keep up with future innovation and new service offerings.